


It's All In The Rhythm

by icarus_chained



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Highlander: The Series
Genre: Academia, Gen, Humor, M/M, Methos has a questionable sense of humour, Ripper Giles, The Watchers (Buffy), The Watchers (Highlander), Translation problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-12
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-03 12:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a young and entirely too innocent Adam Pierson helps Rupert with an Akkadian fertility prayer ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All In The Rhythm

**Author's Note:**

> Set pre-series for both, I think. The Akkadian prayer does not actually exist as described here (though I did steal the first three words of it from an Akkadian prayer to an entirely different god). Also? Methos is a horrible, horrible man. *grins*

For the fourth time in as many minutes, Giles stumbled over one of the words of the incantation, the hard edge of one syllable tripping his tongue and sending it sprawling all over the rest of the line. The fourth time in as many minutes, and the seventeenth in the past half-hour. He snarled under his breath, letting the tome drop back onto the desk with a thud. There was something _wrong_ with this damned prayer! Maybe in the translation ...

"Napsursu abu remenuu ..." A voice from behind started suddenly, continuing even as he turned in his chair to see the source. The young researcher from the Immortal division flushed a little, but didn't stop his declamation, his voice wrapping smoothly around foreign syllables, flowing up and down in liquid cadence, a faint rough burr adding accent and flavour to the words ... Listening, Giles found himself suddenly and unaccountably warm.

There was a moment of silence as the incantation drew to a close, an almost reverent hush as Giles stared at the other Watcher, and the man in question stared at his feet, slouching almost fearfully inside his over-sized pullover until he looked all of twelve years old. Prompting Giles to stare even harder, until he managed to pull himself together, pushing his glasses up his nose, faintly disturbed to find them slightly fogged.

"Well, you have quite a grasp on Akkadian, young man, even if I don't quite remember asking for your help." He smiled, softening. "And you are ...?"

The young man tipped his head up, startled, and fumbled his books into one arm to hold out a hand. Giles took it warmly. "Ah, Pierson. Adam Pierson," the boy stammered. "And it's ... I love languages, it's why I'm here, and what you have there ... I didn't mean to interrupt, sir, it just ..." He trailed off, lowering his eyes in embarrassment again. Giles smiled.

"Never mind," he said, gently. "It's more than alright, Mr Pierson, believe me. But how did you manage the flow of intonation?"

Pierson blushed a bit, a small smile flickering in one corner of his mouth, and pointed gently to the page. "It's a prayer to Ishtar, yes? The fertility goddess? And if you look at this symbol here, at the top ... that's a cheat symbol. It means this is a prayer meant for declamation to a set rhythm. It's a bit like Shakespeare and iambic pentameter, really. These marks ..." His finger moved, voice gaining assurance and quiet, steady confidence. "They let you know which words are cheated, lengthened or shortened to fit the rhythm. And it's to Ishtar, so it's a fertility prayer, which means the rhythm is supposed to rise and fall ..."

He stopped, trailing off, and a delicate flush of pink feathered over the fine, well-made cheekbones. Giles stared in outright fascination. "Rise and fall?" he prompted, oddly delighted at the way the boy swallowed.

"Well, it's ... it's supposed to rise and fall like ... it's supposed to emulate ..." He stopped again, his hand moving jerkily but unmistakably in a decent approximation of the old in-and-out, and suddenly Giles wanted to laugh, and a deeper, darker part of him wanted to do something else entirely. Pierson flicked an embarrassed glance up at him, and startled at something in Giles expression, a flush of heat and nervousness, and something, underneath, something sly and dark, something that reminded Giles so much of Ethan ...

He wrenched his mind away from that. _No_ , he told himself, fiercely. Ripper Giles, you cannot, you may _not_ , under _no circumstances_ , demonstrate the proper application of that rhythm for the boy's edification and delight. You may _not!_ But oh, it was so very, very tempting ...

"Are ..." The young man --the _boy_ , Ripper, he's barely bloody grown-- cleared his throat nervously. "Are you alright, sir?"

"I'm ..." The flash of something in those oh-so-innocent eyes caught Giles off guard again, strangling the words, and he pulled off his glasses to polish them in a desperate play for time. "I'm perfectly fine, young man." Or I would be, if you weren't standing there looking so young and flushed and delectable. "May I say that was an ... interesting gesture, on your part?"

Pierson went properly red, this time, a truly British flush of embarrassment and horror, and Giles suddenly wanted to touch that face, wanted to see how hot it really was, and somewhere inside him Ripper leaped at something in the young man's eyes, some flash of ... humour? ... that excited him far, far too much. Far too much. In fact, he probably needed to leave, very quickly, before he did something they'd both regret.

"Thank you for your help, Mr Pierson," he said, abruptly, coming to his feet and gathering his books. Pierson leapt back, startled, and dipped his head to stare resolutely at his feet, shuffling gently as Giles moved past, almost destroying the Watcher's well-meaning attempt to escape as he skimmed the corner of the desk an inch away from that hunched, slender figure. Just one little touch ... No, Ripper! No!

"You're welcome sir," the youth said, softly and oddly earnest as Giles beat a rapid retreat. "Any time ..."

And it was lucky Giles didn't see the flash of deep, ancient amusement in those eyes as he hurried out of the library, or all the best intentions in the world wouldn't have kept him from jumping the boy's bones then and bloody there!


End file.
